Nike+ Fuel Band hands on.

Ok, so I have been lucky enough to get hold of one of these despite them not being available in the UK. I thought I would give you a hands on type review for anyone considering getting one when they land over here.

This is basically an accelerometer that you wear as a wrist band, it has a time feature so I have chosen to replace my watch with it.
It looks really cool :-) it doesn't take much to set me off but trendy flashing light work for me! LOL. Its very comfy, you wear it snug and you soon forget its there. I have been getting roughly 4 days or so between charges, as Nike said you would to be fair.

It measures Nike fuel, cals, steps and displays the time, it syncs via Bluetooth or USB and there is a nice app. It recognises when you are doing anything energetic and so you don't need to 'tell' it like with the UP. The fuel is a Nike construct, if it takes off (as it seems to be) this enables you to compare eggs with eggs because the fuel is awarded in the same way to everyone irrespective of what your actually doing, there is already plenty of banter on twitter with people from all kinds of sports discussing their fuel score. If you hit your daily goal the band gives you a display and the app plays a Jingle and an animated character applauds your efforts.

Cals are worked out via your height, weight and age and are mathematically deduced from your step count and the vigorousness of your movement via the accelerometer. I havent a HRM at the mo so can't compare but it does seem reasonably accurate. Nike claim to use oxygen kinetics as well, although how I don't know.

The step counter is 'optomistic' shall we say. Because you wear this on your wrist it is easily confused by movement, I clicked up 30 odd steps last night sitting on the couch. That said, it didn't count my actual steps while carrying a bag so I suppose you could say it kinda works itself out. I don't think this has a massive impact on the calorific value or the fuel score as other things are also used for these calculations.

This has huge potential, I can see many possible firmware upgrades such as sleep monitoring, HRM integration via Bluetooth chest strap and many other things, this really could be very good, not to mention a MFP tie in. The Nike software does not have any nutrition section, but TBH with excellent sites like this they could link in to why bother!

I like it, it will cost 140 when released in the UK so is expensive, but I would say you are not only buying the now, but also he potential so not THAT bad IMO. it's built well, it all works and it looks SICK! What it is very good at is motivation, you really do feel as if you are being watched and it makes you want to crack on. As the fuel element takes off this motivational factor will only increase as the social/competitive aspect kicks in. Especially given that no matter what you are doing, the fuel is awarded in the bang same way to your mate so you really are competing on an equal footing. Put bluntly, there's no excuse! LOL.

That's it for now as a quick overview, if you have any questions I will try to answer them based on m own experience.

:-)